


i'll find you, just wade and sea

by dreamweavernyx



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, oblivious idiots being oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 10:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamweavernyx/pseuds/dreamweavernyx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Makoto first gets his summer job, he finds there a co-worker with eyes as deep as the middle of the ocean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll find you, just wade and sea

**Author's Note:**

> For the amazing [honeyogurt](http://honeyogurt.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Loosely inspired by _The Little Mermaid_ as well as Dick King-Smith's _The Merman_.
> 
> Sasabe's character is loosely based off _xxxHolic_ 's Ichihara Yuuko.
> 
> Beta-read by my amazing senpai [yatsuiko](http://moeblobmegane.tumblr.com/).

Tachibana Makoto first meets Haru at age seven, when his family goes to Shirahama beach during the summer holiday.

 

The meeting happens at night, when Makoto’s parents have gone ahead back to the villa by the beach that they’ve rented, leaving him sitting on the jetty, toes skimming the water surface, with a promise that they’ll be back to find him later. Makoto loves the sea, after all, and when the crowds had _finally_ thinned after the sun set he’d begged to be let alone to enjoy the tranquility for a while.

 

The sea is oddly calming at night, and as Makoto swings his legs back and forth and stares out at the horizon he purses his lips and tries to whistle. It’s not a jaunty whistle like the kind his father can do, just a thin, reedy sound, haunting like the mournful keen of a cold sea breeze.

 

There’s a sort of splashing sound nearby, and Makoto brings his gaze down from the skyline to see a pair of eyes blinking up at him. The eyes belong to a pale boy, looking to be about his age, with everything from his torso down submerged in the sea, and a longish black ponytail tied low and floating in the water behind him.

 

“Hey,” says Makoto, because really, what else does one say to someone randomly popping out of the sea?

 

“Hey,” says the boy. “Was that you? Singing?”

 

“Whistling,” Makoto corrects. “Or at least, trying to. I’m not much good.”

 

The boy frowns a little, as though in thought, but the crease on his brow disappears soon enough.

 

“Haven't seen you around before,” says the boy instead, peering curiously up at him. For some reason, the rest of his body hasn’t appeared above the water at all, and Makoto thinks that the boy must be very good at treading water.

 

“I’m on holiday,” he replies. “Who’re you, anyway?”

 

“Haru,” says the boy. “That’s what everyone calls me.”

 

“Makoto,” Makoto returns.

 

He’s about to ask _what’re you doing out in the sea so late at night_ , but then he hears his mum calling for him from the edge of the beach, so he scrambles to his feet.

 

“Will you be here tomorrow, or will you have gone back by then?” Makoto asks Haru.

 

Haru only shoots him a semi-confused look.

 

“I’m always here,” he says.

 

~

 

And he _is_ , because when Makoto heads back down to the jetty the next night Haru doesn’t take long to show up. Again, he seems to be swimming and, not for the first time, Makoto wonders where the rest of Haru’s family is; if they’ve left him swimming in the sea at night.

 

“Here,” is the first thing Haru says upon seeing him, reaching up and pressing a white something into Makoto’s hand. On closer inspection, it appears to be some sort of curious flute, carved out of a porous material that feels just a bit like coral.

 

Makoto immediately tries it out, but all he gets is a funny sputtering sound and some seawater dribbling out the open end. Haru’s mouth quirks up just a bit, and Makoto imagines that the boy’s really laughing at him.

 

“Give it here.”

 

Haru reaches for the flute and puts it to his lips, and begins to play some sort of whispery, husky tune that sounds a lot like Makoto’s whistling. He stops abruptly, and hands the flute back.

 

“Reminded me of your… whistling.”

 

He looks almost embarrassed, and Makoto grins.

 

“I love it,” he says, watching the tiny smile flash across Haru’s features again. “I’ll practice at it, I promise.”

 

He pauses, then: “Why’re you out here at night, anyway? Where’re your parents?”

 

Haru shoots him a searching look. He must see something he approves of in there, because he nods to himself and shifts a little in the water.

 

“Can you keep a secret?”

 

Immediately, Makoto’s curiosity is piqued – “Of course!” he says, almost eager at the prospect of hearing something _secret_ – and a spark of amusement flickers in Haru’s eyes.

 

There’s a ripple in the water, and suddenly, for a brief moment, Makoto sees the tail of a dolphin flick out of the water, and his jaw drops open.

 

“Y-you’re a _mermaid_?” he nearly squeaks, and Haru wrinkles his nose.

 

“Mer _man_.”

 

“You’re not a man,” replies Makoto dismissively, and ignores Haru’s subsequent mutter of “Well, I’m not a maid either,” under his breath.

 

“That’s cool, though!” he says instead, with all the innocent wonder of a seven-year-old, and Haru’s eyes widen.

 

“You think so?” Haru asks speculatively, and Makoto nods vigorously in reply.

 

“Yeah! I mean, you get to swim and stuff all the time right? That must be great!”

 

“It _is_ ,” says Haru. “I wonder what it’s like to have those legs of yours though. Is it true that you can use your hands like legs?”

 

“…You mean like, _walk_ on our hands?” Makoto asks, and squints as he tries to remember the circus he’d been to the year before, where there had definitely been people walking on their hands. “Some people do, I guess? You need a ton of practice, though.”

 

“And you can still swim?”

 

“Yeah,” says Makoto, “but we can’t hold our breath for very long unless we bring special scuba equipment with us…”

 

He trails off, because Haru’s started to look rather confused at the mention of scuba gear.

 

“Yeah, we can swim,” he finishes awkwardly.

 

“Huh,” says Haru. “Being human seems pretty cool, if you can do that walking thing and also swim.”

 

“You should try it sometime,” Makoto says, before Haru motions at his tail and uses the dorsal fins to flick water at Makoto’s face.

 

“ _Tail_.”

 

“But still-”

 

“ _Makoto!_ ”

 

Makoto’s mum is calling from the edge of the beach, and a discreet splash tells Makoto his new friend has just ducked back underwater.

 

“Coming!” he yells, and waits until his mum’s silhouette disappears again before he looks down at the water and splashes at where he thinks Haru is.

 

“I’ll be here for another five days,” he says when Haru surfaces. “See you tomorrow?”

 

Haru waves his tail at him, and then he is gone, back under the sea foam, and Makoto slowly trudges back up the beach, the flute in his hand and the weight of the coolest secret _ever_ locked up in his chest.

 

~

 

On the last night, Makoto lingers at the jetty a little longer than usual.

 

“I live in Tokyo,” he tells Haru. “Come see me sometime?”

 

“Tokyo?”

 

“Tokyo Bay,” replies Makoto, trying to think of the water sources near Tokyo. “Um.”

 

“It’s the human city?” Haru asks.

 

“The biggest one,” Makoto replies. “Come find me. Promise?”

 

Haru looks suspiciously at the pinky Makoto extends to him, and even after Makoto patiently explains the concept of a pinky promise to him, still looks unconvinced but hooks his wet pinky in Makoto’s anyway.

 

(Makoto only realizes, much later, that he won’t know when Haru comes to Tokyo Bay.)

 

~

 

**_one year later_ **

 

Makoto’s mum doesn’t ask this time round when he disappears to go to the jetty after dinner. She’d stared at him when he’d begged to go to Shirahama _again_ for summer, but agreed easily enough.

 

Plopping down on the wooden planks at the edge of the jetty, Makoto fishes around in his pocket for the little flute and brings it to his lips. True to his word, he’s been practicing, and he can now play something that resembles a melody (in, according to his dad, the barest sense of the word).

 

The reedy notes seem strangely loud in the silent night air, and Makoto waits after, kicking his legs in the surf and staring out at the horizon.

 

This time, no dolphin mermaid (merman?) appears.

 

Makoto doesn’t give up, and tries again the next night, and the night after, but there is no sign of Haru.

 

On the fourth night, someone does pop up, but it’s a redhead about his age and not the ponytailed head of Haru.

 

“Oi,” says the redhead boy, who looks rather irate. “Are you the one playing that goddamned thing every night?”

 

“Are you a mermaid?” is the first thing that slips out of Makoto’s mouth, and the boy’s scowl only deepens.

 

“Mer _man_ ,” he says grumpily. “Shark.”

 

“Do you know Haru? Only, I’ve been looking for him-”

 

“Did you meet him last year?” the redhead cuts in, suddenly looking as though he’d smelled something bad.

 

“…Yes?”

 

“You that Makots dude?”

 

“Makoto,” he tries to correct, but then the other boy’s expression sours even more (if that’s even possible).

 

“ _You_ ,” he hisses. “It’s all _your_ fault! Haru’s gone and it’s all _your_ fault!”

 

“I- Wha-”

 

“You fed him all that stuff about the human world and now he’s gone and that damn old man Sasabe said he won’t ever return until he becomes a real man or whatever and it’s _all your fault_!”

 

The words fly over Makoto’s head, and the only thing he grasps is _Haru’s gone_.

 

“Haru’s gone?” he asks, stupidly. “Where?”

 

“ _You_ tell me!” snaps the redhead. “One day my best friend’s here and the next day he’s gone, with nothing more than that stupid seaweed hair tie of his left behind-”

 

“ _Brother_!”

 

Another voice, female this time, breaks the redhead’s rant, and Makoto blinks as a redhead girl pops out of the water and yanks the redhead boy’s ear.

 

“Ow- What the _hell_ , Gou?!”

 

“It’s _Kou_ ,” snaps the girl. “Why are you being mean to random people?”

 

“He’s not- He’s that Makots dude-”

 

“Makoto.”

 

“-that lured Haru away so I’m totally allowed to yell at him-”

 

“Actually-”

 

“-and why are _you_ here, anyway?” finishes the boy, ignoring Makoto’s attempts to cut in and instead narrowing his eyes at his sister, who shoots him an unimpressed look.

 

“Mum’s looking for you,” she says. “Something about that homicidal octopus of yours.”

 

“Ai’s not homicidal, he’s just _misunderstood_!”

 

“Sorry,” she continues, steamrollering over her brother’s indignant squawk and turning to Makoto instead. “Ignore my idiot brother.”

 

With a wave, she disappears back under the water with a graceful flick of her tail, dragging the other boy behind her by the ear.

 

~

 

The two redhead mermaids don’t show up again, and, although Makoto keeps playing the flute, neither does Haru.

 

(The next summer, when his mother asks him if he wants to go to Shirahama again, Makoto hesitates for a while, but tells her _no_.)

 

~

 

**_nine years later_ **

 

Seventeen-year-old Tachibana Makoto looks up at the sign of the aquarium that will become his workplace for the summer.

 

He’s intending to be a marine biologist, and upon the recommendation of his teacher, had applied for the summer job slot at the local aquarium. Double-checking the address, he steels himself and pushes the door open.

 

The first thing that assaults him is the faint smell of fish.

 

“Hello?” he calls.

 

“We’re not open yet!” calls a female voice from inside, and seconds later, a young lady in overalls comes out to peer curiously at him.

 

“Um,” says Makoto, feeling rather out of his depth. “Are you the owner, Amakata-san? I’m here for the summer job…”

 

“Oh!” she brightens. “Yes, I’m Amakata Miho. You must be Tachibana-kun?”

 

Makoto nods, and she smiles.

 

“Follow me, Tachibana-kun,” she says, and leads him back into what looks to be her office. “Now, you’re not the only student we have doing summer jobs, but you’re the newest one, so I’ll be assigning you a partner. He’s been working here since forever, so he’ll guide you around!”

 

“Partner?” asks Makoto.

 

“Yes! Nanase-kun. He doesn’t talk much, but he’s very good with all the fish.”

 

Almost as if on cue, there’s a quiet knock on the door, and Amakata-san opens it for a slim boy to walk in. The first thing Makoto notices is that the boy – Nanase – has eyes that are blue like the ocean, and sleek black hair cropped short.

 

“Nanase-kun, this is Tachibana Makoto-kun, the new part-timer I told you about before. Tachibana-kun, this is Nanase Haruka-kun, your new partner.”

 

“Nice to meet you,” Makoto says, and Nanase nods back in return.

 

“Great!” Amakata-san says, clapping her hands. “Now, Nanase-kun, why don’t you show Tachibana-kun around? And then you can help clean the fish tanks after that.”

 

~

 

Nanase – or Haruka, as he insists on being called – is not much of a talker, as Makoto soon finds out. In fact, he isn’t a talker at all, typing things out slowly on his phone whenever he can’t communicate using mere body language.

 

Makoto asks him why he doesn’t talk, and only gets a simple _No voice_ in reply. He assumes that Haruka’s got some sort of sore throat, but it’s probably the mother of all sore throats if the other helpers treat his silence as normal.

 

After the second day, Makoto finds him strangely familiar, but doesn’t remember ever having a mute classmate or friend, so he dismisses the niggling feeling in the back of his mind.

 

He and Haruka aren’t the only helpers at the aquarium – there are another two who’ve been working at the aquarium during the summer holiday rush since middle school. One’s his age, the other a year younger, and from the first time Makoto meets them they seem to be practically joined at the hip.

 

_I call them the Terrible Twins_ , Haruka tells him one day, and Makoto certainly can’t disagree.

 

Nagisa, the younger one, is a ball of constant energy, who bounces around everywhere and can’t seem to stop talking or smiling. Rei, the older one, seems to tolerate his antics, and confides one day that he’s only there to make sure Nagisa doesn’t accidentally blow up a fish tank and kill every form of marine life living within.

 

Rei is also distinctly not fond of most forms of marine life, and spends most of his shifts huddled in the exhibit with the most landmass – generally the penguin exhibit – and is also terrified of feeding time when the smell of fish gets rather overpowering.

 

But it’s Haruka who inexplicably draws Makoto’s attention. He moves around the aquarium like a natural, and seems to know every fish in every tank as though they’re some sort of personal friend. Makoto remembers Amakata-san saying that Haruka’s worked at the aquarium ‘since forever’, and wonders if Haruka’s maybe grown up surrounded by the fish tanks and feeding buckets.

 

Two weeks and a bit of digging later, he finds out that Amakata-san had taken Haruka in when she’d found him nibbling at day-old dried mackerel on the street, homeless and rather lost on the streets of Tokyo. She hadn’t adopted him, because she was terrible with kids, but she’d apparently given him a job and let him sleep in the aquarium until he could get his own place. (Or at least, that was what happened, according to Nagisa.)

 

What intrigues Makoto the most about Haruka, though, is the way he seems as though he doesn’t really belong. The occasional new piece of technology baffles him, he still tries to open his mouth and talk even though no sound comes out, and sometimes when he thinks Makoto isn’t looking he’ll stare out the window in the general direction of the sea, vague wistful longing in his eyes.

 

Nanase Haruka, Makoto decides a couple of weeks into his summer job, is a mystery.

 

~

 

“Ack,” says Makoto, peering into his bag. “I left my lunch at home.”

 

It’s lunch break, and they’re all gathered at Amakata-san’s pantry area to eat. Usually Makoto’ll have a couple of onigiri and a bottle of Pocari but today he’s only remembered the Pocari and not the actual food.

 

“You guys start without me,” he tells the others, waving a vague hand as he rummages for his wallet. “I’ll go to the Lawsons down the road to buy something for lunch.”

 

There’s a stilted pause, and then he feels a light tap on his shoulder. It’s Haruka, holding out what seems to be a bento box filled with rice and grilled mackerel.

 

Makoto blinks stupidly.

 

“Isn’t this your lunch?”

 

Haruka frowns, then fishes for his phone single-handedly before laboriously typing out: _Made too much. Help me finish?_

 

“Oh. Um. Okay?”

 

Evidently this is the right answer, because Haruka cocks his head in a gesture Makoto has come to recognize as his version of a smile, and then heads back to the lunch table.

 

The mackerel, Makoto finds, is delicious.

 

~

 

One day Makoto accidentally brings the little white flute to the aquarium. He’d left it in his coat pocket, and only realizes it when he’s rummaging around for his phone.

 

“Oops,” he says, more to himself than anything, and starts looking for a secure pocket in his bag to keep it in.

 

He hears shuffling footsteps behind him, and turns to find Haruka peering curiously at him. _What’s that?_ his eyes ask as they eye the object in Makoto’s hand.

 

“It’s a flute,” he tells Haruka. “Someone gave it to me a long time ago, it’s one of my most treasured possessions. Want to hear it?”

 

He doesn’t wait for Haruka to answer, and lifts the flute to his lips. He’s a lot better at it now than he was nine years ago, and he plays a lilting, reedy melody for a while.

 

“Cool, huh?” he says when he’s done.

 

Haruka’s wide eyes and gobsmacked expression, he tells himself, are totally because he’s in awe of Makoto’s great flute-playing skills.

 

~

 

“Nii-san,” says Ran at dinner, “is this Haruka-san your boyfriend?”

 

Makoto chokes on his rice, coughs explosively for nearly a full minute, and then turns watery eyes on his sister.

 

“My _what_?”

 

Ran looks too gleefully innocent for a nine-year-old as she says: “But you talk about him _all the time_ , nii-san. ‘Today Haruka did this’ and ‘Haruka said this’ and stuff.”

 

“Yeah!” Ren chimes in. “And Ran’s magazines all say that if you talk about someone a lot it means you’re dating them!”

 

Makoto wrinkles his nose and tries not to shudder at the thought of his brother flipping through the glossy magazines with the pink glittery covers that their sister seems to favour. Their parents, he realizes belatedly, seem to be studiously ignoring their conversation, but he can see a little smile creeping up his mum’s face, so he hastens to do damage control.

 

“Haruka’s just a friend, Ran,” he says.

 

She smirks at him over her rice bowl, a glint of triumph in her eyes.

 

“That’s what they _always_ say, nii-san!” she crows.

 

“You know, Makoto,” his dad chimes in, “we’ll still love you if you’re gay-”

 

“I am _not_ gay,” Makoto cuts in, ignoring the dull red flush creeping up his neck and burning the tips of his ears. “Can we not discuss my love life and the existence of it over dinner? Please?”

 

“Very well,” says Ran solemnly, with all the gravitas a nine-year-old can muster, but the wicked quirk of her lips doesn’t leave all through dinner.

 

~

 

Haruka comes in late for work one day. It’s pretty unusual, because in Makoto’s memory Haruka is always the earliest person to arrive, and he interrogates Haruka about it over lunch.

 

_Lost track of time_ , he types. _Was at the beach._

 

“The _beach_?” Makoto asks. “In the morning?”

 

_It’s quiet. I like the sea, it calms me down and helps me think._

 

“Ah,” Makoto says, thinking back to quiet summer nights on a seaside jetty, swinging his legs in the sea spray and reveling in the quiet. “Yeah, I can understand that.”

 

“Hey!” Nagisa’s voice cuts in from the doorway. “Whatcha talking ‘bout?”

 

“Nothing,” says Makoto, struck by a sudden inexplicable desire to keep that little tidbit about Haruka to himself.

 

“If you say so,” Nagusa replies, shrugging. “Only, Rei-chan’s gotten himself locked up in the penguin exhibit because he dropped the key into the pool, and now he’s too terrified to swim in to get it…”

 

Haruka snorts and gets to his feet, reaching for his swimsuit in his bag.

 

“Haruka’ll get it for him,” Makoto tells Nagisa unnecessarily, even as Haruka heads for the changing rooms.

 

It takes three minutes for Haruka to pick up the key – he’s abnormally good at swimming, and Makoto wonders how he can still see underwater without goggles – and another two to pry a relieved Rei off him.

 

“I hate to break up the party,” Amakata-san cuts in, “but it’s feeding time, and I walk in to find all the feed still in the kitchen and all my helpers fooling around in the penguin exhibit.”

 

She’s smiling, but Makoto’s hung around for long enough to know that the deathly aura she emits means it’s the Smile of Doom, and they all quickly scamper away to get the fish feed before she can unleash her Clipboard of Death on them.

 

~

 

“Tachibana-kun,” Amakata-san says a couple of evenings later. “I’ve got a goukon tonight, can you and Nanase-kun lock up? You can return me the key tomorrow.”

 

She doesn’t wait for a response, only drops the aquarium keys into his hand and waves at him cheerily, before leaving.

 

Nagisa and Rei had left before dinner to help Nagisa buy clothes for some event he’d be attending over the weekend. (Rei had muttered something about Nagisa’s idea of formal clothing being ‘not beautiful in the slightest’ and had dragged the shorter boy out.)

 

“Haruka?” Makoto calls out. The aquarium had closed to visitors about an hour ago, but there was still cleanup to do, and the morning feed for tomorrow that they had to prepare.

 

Two seconds later Makoto realizes there isn’t any point in calling out for Haruka anyway, because he wouldn’t respond. He finds Haruka eventually, cutting up fish neatly for the penguins’ breakfast.

 

“Amakata-san left us to lock up,” Makoto says, when Haruka turns to him with a question in his eyes.

 

Haruka nods, tosses the last fish into a bucket, and then pushes the bucket into the huge fridge in the kitchen. He tilts his head at Makoto, which he takes to mean _are you done?_ so Makoto nods.

 

“Yeah, I’m done, just need to turn off the lights in the viewing gallery.

 

Haruka washes his hands and dries them on his jeans, before picking up his phone.

 

_I’m done here, let’s go._

 

Makoto grabs his bag and slings it over his shoulder as Haruka does the same, and they leave the kitchen. The gallery lights are easy enough to turn off, but Makoto has never been able to successfully locate the walkway illumination lights.

 

There’s a _click_ and suddenly the gallery’s plunged into total darkness, and Makoto realizes belatedly that turning off _all_ the lights while they’re still inside had probably been a stupid idea.

 

“Haruka?” he calls hesitantly. “You there?”

 

There’s a quiet shuffling from his left, and suddenly a light sputters to life as Haruka activates the flashlight feature on his phone.

 

“There you are,” Makoto says, turning to Haruka, but his next words die in his throat as he meets Haruka’s eyes. They’re a luminous, clear blue under the harsh light of the phone flashlight, and they seem to pierce through Makoto’s own eyes and into his soul, a gaze strange yet strangely familiar.

 

Haruka looks up at him, a tiny hint of confusion swimming into his eyes, but Makoto doesn’t notice it. Driven by some strange instinct that seems to take over his body, he leans down and closes the short distance between their faces.

 

It’s clumsy, and it only lasts for a brief second, but by the time Makoto pulls back he’s regained some semblance of rational thought, and the strange urge that had gripped him to _kiss_ Haruka, of all things, is completely gone.

 

“Um,” he flounders. “Er.”

 

Haruka stares at him with eyes stretched wide for a short while, then suddenly he’s gone, bolting for the door, leaving Makoto alone in the dark gallery, cursing himself and his stupid, _stupid_ urges.

 

~

 

Makoto spends the entire walk to the beach thinking and reasoning with himself, and he’s so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he almost misses the figure crouched on a rocky outcrop a little distance out in the waves.

 

As Makoto comes closer, he realizes that the figure _is_ Haruka, like he’d hoped, staring out forlornly at the sea with one leg drawn up to his chest and the other dangling down, toe nearly touching the water.

 

“Hey,” Makoto says quietly, plopping down beside Haruka. “Um. Sorry for startling you. Earlier. You know.”

 

Haruka inclines his head, and Makoto considers it a tiny victory that he doesn’t run away.

 

_Why did you do it?_ Haruka asks instead and Makoto blinks down at the screen.

 

“Because it’s what people do when they like each other,” he says, picking his words carefully as he explains to Haruka what he’d realized for himself on his walk to the beach. “And I kind of might like you.”

 

Haruka whips his head around to stare straight at Makoto, surprise etched in every line of his face, and Makoto suddenly feels extremely, extremely awkward, and turns away to face the sea.

 

_Is this how girls feel when they get rejected?_ he wonders. _If so, I’m never rejecting someone again._

 

“I mean- You’re probably not gay- Actually I didn’t know I was gay until- Well-”

 

Makoto knows he’s babbling, but he can’t bear to look at Haruka now, not when he’s pretty sure he’ll see rejection in those eyes, see a simple line on Haruka’s phone saying _Sorry_ -

 

And then something soft lands on his cheek, and Makoto’s so startled that he nearly jumps off the rock they’re sitting on. He turns back to see Haruka peering at him almost hesitantly, bringing up a hand to touch his own lips, and puts two and two together rather quickly.

 

“Wait- what-”

 

Haruka shoots him a _look_ and starts typing furiously into his phone.

 

_Didn't you say this is what people do when they like each other?_

 

“Yes, but-”

 

The look Haruka levels on him asks _are you stupid_ rather plainly, and Makoto blinks.

 

“…Oh.”

 

Haruka’s eyes narrow. _Yes, ‘oh’,_ they say.

 

Relief fills Makoto’s chest in a rush and he whoops, throwing himself at Haruka and grinning when he feels Haruka’s arms hesitantly wrap around him in return. Haruka doesn’t hate him, Haruka _likes_ him, and-

 

The laws of physics choose an inopportune moment to come into play, and Makoto briefly remembers that he’d thrown himself at Haruka when both of them were sitting on a _rock_ in the _sea_ , and has brief seconds to realize that it had been a stupid idea before they both crash into the waves below.

 

Makoto gasps for air as he treads water, rubbing at his eyes.

 

“My phone!” he hears a yelp.

 

“It’s probably a gone case-”

 

Realization hits him, and he opens his eyes to stare at Haruka, who’s the only other person in the sea.

 

“You can _talk_?!” he squawks, and Haruka levels a look of exasperation on him.

 

“I’ll explain later,” Haruka sighs, in a voice that brings with it a sense of déjà vu, and begins to paddle back to shore.

 

~

 

“So,” Makoto says, when they’ve dragged themselves onto the beach. “Talk. Since, y’know, you _can_.”

 

“I couldn’t before,” Haruka grumbles, squeezing water out of his hair.

 

Makoto doesn’t reply, only waits patiently for Haruka to say something more.

 

“Makoto,” Haruka turns to look him straight in the eye. “I’m a merman.”

 

“…Is that some sort of euphemism for being gay?” Makoto asks. “Only, I’m pretty sure you made that pretty obvious already-”

 

“No, I’m a _merman_ , Makoto. It’s not a euphemism.”

 

Makoto blinks back stupidly. “Um.”

 

Haruka sighs.

 

“Ten years ago, Shirahama,” he says. “Do you not remember?”

 

And Makoto _does_ remember, and now that he looks closely he realizes that Haruka’s eyes under the moonlight are the exact same shade as Haru the merman’s eyes, and if Haru’d cut his hair short it _would_ probably look like Haruka’s-

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah,” Haruka says, looking strangely amused. “Oh.”

 

And then Haruka explains everything. His desire to see the world on the surface, his visit to the hermit merman Sasabe, who’d agreed to trade his tail for legs for a price.

 

“He said he’d take my voice,” Haruka murmurs. “But if he took it away forever it wouldn’t be a fair exchange, so he said he’d give it back when I’d found what I was looking for.”

 

“What you were looking for?” Makoto repeats dumbly, and Haruka snorts, nudging his shoulder.

 

“Yeah. I found you, didn’t I?”

 

Makoto laughs and nudges back.

 

“You did.”

 

A pause, then-

 

“So, a merman, huh,” Makoto muses. “No wonder you were such a fish out of water.”

 

Haruka scowls and shoves at Makoto half-heartedly, as Makoto chortles at his own joke.

 

“Was that necessary?” he deadpans.

 

“Yeah,” Makoto grins, trying to stop laughing. “Of course.”

 

~

 

The next morning they go around their duties as normal, but Makoto finds his hand straying towards Haruka’s rather often, playing with his fingers and pretending not to notice the slight upwards curve of Haruka’s lips.

 

Nagisa does notice, though.

 

“Mako-chan!” he crows. “You got _laid_ , didn’t you?”

 

Rei flushes a million shades of red and unceremoniously dumps Nagisa into the penguin pool, while Makoto just laughs and laughs.

 

“ _Honestly_ ,” Haruka sighs, but it’s only half-exasperated, and Makoto grips Haruka’s hand a little tighter, grinning.

 

“You know you love me,” replies Makoto cheekily.

 

“Mm,” hums Haruka, squeezing Makoto’s hand back. “Yeah, I do.”

 

 

 

 

_fin._


End file.
